Walking, talking: The military beat

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. The IRE Journal, Mar/Apr 2002 by Weinberg, Steve

Pen & Sword: A Journalist's Guide to Covering the Military By Ed Offley Marion Street Press (Box 2249, Oak Park, 111.60304; www.marionstreetpress.com; 708-445-8330,304 pages, $24.95

Ed Offley has covered the military for the Seattle Post-Intelligence r, The Stars and Stripes, and Defense Watch newsletter. He can explain the difference between a second lieutenant and a chief petty officer without hesitating. When talk of weaponry begins, Offley knows the difference between an M-16 and an F- 16. Lots of journalists have no idea if those designations refer to rifles, airplanes or tanks, much less how they differ in detail.

In short, just as an experienced business journalist can fluently define long and short selling, just as an experienced political reporter can explain the nuances of a U.S. Senate filibuster, Offley can talk the military talk.

Offley's skills are especially valuable in the current reporting climate. In some newsrooms, journalists who can be fairly termed ignorant about most things military recently traveled to Afghanistan. If they carried Offley's book with them, they might have sounded like they knew the jargon.

Offley has covered stories that might sound boring to some journalists - or harrowing or awesomely important. "In a covered aircraft revetment in Taif," he reports, "I studied the expressions of sheer excitement and joy of two Air Force fliers just returned from their first night combat mission over Iraq. ... In a shattered airport control tower at Mogadishu, I watched three young airmen just past their teens ignore the random gunfire outside as they coordinated a massive aerial supply campaign by the light of a battery-powered lantern."

But, he says, the rewards of the military beat "are not limited to interesting assignments, foreign travel and the adrenaline rush of a Scud missile attack. There is the satisfaction that comes when in-depth research pays off with confirmation of a long-- suppressed Cold War incident. (Did you know the United States once dropped an atomic bomb on Canada?) There is the stronger fulfillment of coming to the assistance of a military service person or veteran who has suffered wrongdoing or inattention at the hands of the bureaucracy. There is the sheer fun of exposing a phony self-described prisoner of war who never served a day in uniform. And there is the potential that the facts you uncover could significantly - and positively - affect an ongoing military policy debate."

Writing about the military as a "remote monolith, an alien culture, a vast bureaucracy of strangers" is ignorant, Offley says. "The stereotypes are very old, and they never die. They are as false now as they have ever been."

Exploding myths

Offley begins his tutorial by describing the five armed services - Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard. Each of those branches has its unique mission, unique organization and unique rank structure. Offley provides the details. They are numerous, jargon-filled and sometimes confusing. He cannot dispel all the confusion, but he tries mightily to do so.

Before the book ends, Offley also describes: how to expose phony war heroes; help readers/viewers/listeners comprehend the death of a serviceman or servicewoman; cover the crash of a military aircraft; write about secret intelligence operations; mine news releases for project leads; prepare for battle in the field; decipher the defense budget; dig into the performance of privatesector defense contractors; and put the federal Freedom of Information Act to productive use. He also describes how to establish a working relationship with the base commander; surf the many Pentagon-related Web sites; cultivate a no-nonsense relationship with the public affairs officer and freedom of information officer (preferably by going out of the way to meet each of the officers in person); be prepared to withhold (rather than publish) information on so-called national security grounds; pack for prolonged time in or around the battlefield; and much more.

Exploding myths, Offley says reporters should never assume the military's public affairs officer is in the know, that a commander is omniscient, that seemingly cooperative sources would never think of leaking a story to the journalistic competition, that what appears in print or on the airwaves will be read dispassionately by military sources.

Military-journalist relationships are frequently difficult to build because so many military folks perceive journalists as leftwing ideologues, while too many journalists perceive those in uniform as duped patriots. There has to be a better way. Offley's book is a good start.

BY STEVE-WEINBERG

THE IRE JOURNAL

Steve Weinberg is senior contributing editor to The IRE Journal, a book author and former executive director of IRE.